Arrr, ye lubbers!

Ahoy, mateys! You may have let it slip your mind, but National Talk Like A Pirate Day is upon us once again. Why exactly this is so is a mystery to me, but it is certainly not something I would ever dream of resisting. Of course, there is always someone responsible for such madness; for the details and sordid history check out the official site (no, really) with the elucidating headline "Because we're guys, and because we can." Really that captures it wholecloth, but do visit the site for the whole story; it is engagingly told and trés amusant (I think).

So avast me hearties, and Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Well, that's over

I feel so proud of myself. I realised this morning that I got through the whole day yesterday without once saying "Happy Patriot Day" to anyone. The certain knowledge that I could not have done so with any degree of sincerity probably aided my restraint; I don't know that I want to go around my workplace dripping sarcasm about things like that. But it is a silly business, veiled as it is in the shroud of real dead innocents, to concoct an excuse to wave our flags and blow our political trumpets and bang our political drum and pretend that we are sincere. So I can hardly be expected to be sincere in my response to it, can I? So I kept silent, and the day passed without incident again.

 

Perhaps next year I will send cards. But probably not.

Beat me with your lyric stick

Garbage is beautiful; we all know that. While I completely missed their 2001 release Beautiful Garbage I am sure that it lived up to the title, especially if there was a picture of Shirley Manson anywhere in the booklet. I never tire of either their eponymous 1995 debut album, nor the 1998 sophomore dynamo Version 2.0. So I was thrilled to happen across their newest effort at the public library a few weeks ago.

Bleed Like Me is a distillation of everything that makes Garbage, well, Garbage. This is slick, driven rock, each track carefully polished within an inch of its life to be as glossy and hypnotic as a lingerie supermodel's improbable breasts. Fair enough; this is what we have come to expect from this particular supergroup. But this time around Shirley and the boys have either run short of words, or they really wanted to make sure that we could sing along on the choruses.

For example, the chorus to the fantastically-catchy "Why Do You Love Me":

Why do you love me?
Why do you love me?
Why do you love me?
It's driving me crazy
Why do you love me?
Why do you love me?
Why do you love me?
It's driving me crazy
Why do you love me?
Why do you love me?
Why do you love me?
It's driving me crazy
Why do you love me?
Why do you love me?

Why indeed? Or the chorus to "Why Don't You Come Over":

So why don't you come over
Oh why don't you come over
So why don't you come over
Oh why don't you come over
So why don't you come over
Oh why don't you come over
So why don't you come over
Oh why don't you come over
And walk in my shoes

And by the end of the album even this economy of words evidently grows excessive; the chorus of "Happy Home" is a near-ecstatic couplet of melodic vocalisation:

ah-ah-ah-uh
ah-ah-ah-uh
ah-ah-ah-uh-ah
ah-ah-ah-uh
ah-ah-ah-uh
ah-ah-ah-uh-ah

I have been listening very carefully to their first two albums and I do not find any example of this lyrical bludgeoning. Their previous output is always sleek, polished, and usually catchy as hell, but there are always plenty of lyrics to go around. This is not a complaint; Bleed Like Me is a fine album with a lot of catchy tunes. I just have to loosen up my neck muscles and get ready to sing along.

I've just seen a face...

But was it a face I used to love? I don't know, and I can't decide whether I care. It has been at least five years since I last saw "Hazel" for certain sure. I have pictures, of course, but the confident memory of her face has completely faded away from me, so that now when a car rolls past and I make eye contact with a woman who might be her, that is the best I can do: it might be her, or it might not. I have no longer any way of telling the difference, no internal check to verify her identity against.

It is sort of the opposite of the situation the persona in Green Day's song "Whatsername" finds himself in. Where he recognises the face of someone he was once involved with, but cannot quite recall her name or other details of their (once shared) past, I lug about a mind crammed full of (sometimes painfully) detailed memories, but with no face to connect them to anymore.

My feelings regarding this are understandably ambivalent. I do not regret any part of the past. I am comfortable now with the choices made, by me and by her —including her (at the time unwelcome) decision to dump me in favour of the fellow who is now her husband. But it is still nice to maintain my connection with my past, my history. And I feel like I really should be able to spot my first love, that I should be able to to pick the first girl I ever kissed out of police lineup if I had to.

Interesting stuff, but not particularly important. That's why I think about it, I suppose...

surfactant

I am thinking today of surfactants. I don't know why; I have no desire to reduce the surface tension of any liquids. I have the vague notion that most surfactants are probably unnatural additives to laundry detergents and so are undesirable.

But it is so fun to say.

Dallas

Ah, what a theme that show had! I am humming it dramatically (there is no other way to hum it, really) as I shower this morning.

For some reason Dallas was one of the few prime time shows our family watched regularly — until, of course, we stopped watching television altogether when I was about eight. Sometimes, during a lull in the conversation, I will randomly ask: "Who shot J.R.?" This is usually sufficient to start the crowd edging away from me. But I am genuinely curious regarding this point. I don't know the answer and have always wondered about it, though not to an extent that has ever cost me any sleep. (We stopped watching at the end of the season before this would have been revealed.) Of course, now so much time has passed that I would be none the wiser even if someone told me an answer: I don't remember any of the characters anymore, aside from the Ewing brothers.

What a strange thing to allow to occupy space in one's memory!

verve

What is it about the word verve? It does absolutely nothing for me, and it really seems like it should do. I never use in writing nor in speech; it never even occurs to me to do so.

It is a characterful, even eccentric word. It could even be quirky. It seems, on paper, to be such a me word. So why should my mind so utterly boycott its employment without any concrete direction from me, its nominal master? It is a mystery, and probably not one worth the effort to solve.

"I Think I'm In Love"

I have never been what you could call a Beck fan. (As for Beck's, well, that would be a different matter.) Ever since the day in my freshman year at college when a fellow student told me that I looked like Beck (whom I had not previously even heard of) I have a bit of a jaundiced attitude toward the fellow. And it is ignorance rather than antipathy that most characterises my response to his musical output; beyond the classic "Loser" and the admirable title track from 2005's Guero, I would be hard pressed indeed to name or even recognise a song of his.

I will have to spend some more time with The Information to really call myself of a fan of either the album or the artist. The few listens I have made didn't result in an overwhelming impression of any sort. But the two singles definitely leap out from the crowd, even if you weren't expecting them (as I was). "Nausea" reaches out and demands repeated, even serial listening, and does so more compellingly and smartly than any song this side of Jude's "Rick James" which didn't leave my player for nearly three months back in 1999. And "I Think I'm In Love" is so lackadaisically catchy that it has earned the honour of being the first song loaded to my new mp3 player, where it will probably burn a hole in my head before I tire of its simple pop perfection.

So I like what little I know of this Beck guy and I shall probably make some further effort to hear more of him. There are certainly many artists I would consider it worse to be told I look like.

Tears in my beer

I knew I was dangerously short of sleep when I broke down weeping while reading an article about Leinenkugel Brewing's newest product, a 8.9% ABV India Pale Ale. As exciting as it is that this venerable middle-of-the-road brewery is venturing into some more adventurous and higher-quality territory, it hardly merited waterworks.

When I was a boy I would always sing the old (I believe Hank Williams) song that goes "There's a tear in my beer, 'cause I'm crying for you, dear." That was all I ever knew of the song — presumably there are a few more lyrics — but it held a significant place in my imagination for many years. My grandfather would sometime sing his own version when we were working together in his wood shop: "I've got tears in my ears, from lying on my back while I'm crying for you, dear."

Today's life lesson: Cry into your beer. Don't cry about your beer.

She's My Cocaine

I am occasionally reminded more or less forcibly why I can never be a critic. I like things. I can be a fan, a gushy fan even. But I can't quibble the way that seems to be the bread and butter of the critic. I can only enthuse.

And now I must enthuse a bit. I have long considered myself a fan of Tori Amos. I enjoy the passionate honesty of her songwriting, the nearly-fey abandon of her musicality, the unfettered drama of her voice. I confess my interest began to dwindle following her 2002 album Scarlet's Walk. It is not a bad album, but even after five years' of listening I have tremendous difficulty in distinguishing one song from another on the disc; they are simply all so similar, so homogenous. I have not picked up any of her subsequent releases, though I continue to enjoy the earlier albums in my collection.

This week I checked out From The Choirgirl Hotel (1998) from the public library. To borrow a phrase from one of my favourite bloggers, this album is rock-pants awesome. I have been spinning it non-stop for three days now, something I have not felt compelled to do with an album for a long time now. There is only one 'hit' — "Spark" — which opens the album with the unforgettable line "She's addicted to nicotine patches." But the thing just keeps exploding from there. By the time we get to tracks like "She's Your Cocaine" and "Northern Lad" I am exhausted by the visceral musical energy, the production value, the sheer wonder of it all. I can't believe I don't own this album! I would write more, but I just have to keep listening to this disc...

Have to get it out of my head

What is it about the human mind that it is so prone to involuntary fixation? I do not know that I am more susceptible to this affliction than my fellow creatures, but as I am the hero of this particular blog, it is — for better or worse — my experience that guides the narrative here.

I get things stuck in my head a lot. (You may have noticed that this is a sort of theme we have going here.) Not just the latest bubblegum pop songs, but words, quotations, movie moments, fragments of past experience; all these things are candidates for getting set to "Repeat" on my mind's internal player. I have long struggled against this affliction, to varying degrees of success. (More on that another day.)

But recently I have been attempting to embrace it. It may be that I would rather rewire my internal jukebox, but it seems to be turning up some decent writing prompts of late, and perhaps they are none the worse as starting points for not being what I would have (consciously) chosen.

"Barbara Allen"

The turkeys. The turkeys are gobbling something fierce this morning. Up in the narrow strip of woods between the urban highway I walk along and the upscale residential street at the top of the rise a surprising number of Meleagris gallopavo are evidently lurking bravely. The vigourous gobbles followed fast one upon the other; at least three gobbler, and no mere jakes, either, but full-fledged toms, gobbling to beat the band.

We still dream of the wooded country life, sitting on the porch in the evening, watching the sunset and and singing folksongs to the accompaniment of my guitar. "Barbara Allen" is my tune all the way to work today, not in the least curtailed by the fact that I only know the titular name and the tune. So I hummed energetically and sang out "Barbara Allen" at regular short intervals.

Soon, my loves. Soon the rural life; I am sure of it.

wainwright

We don't talk about wrights much anymore, about makers. Lampwrights, wheelwrights, and certainly wainwrights seldom appear in everyday conversation. This may have something to do with the absence of the activity of making such things as lamps, wheels, and waggons. What hath your wright wrought for you?

Archaisms are us.

"Lips Of An Angel"

I am known to be — at least by myself — a particularly forgiving (or undiscerning) consumer of both music and movies. I have never, for example, walked out of a movie, either in the theatre or — perhaps more tellingly — in what might loosely be described as the 'home viewing experience' regardless of actual residency. I think the low point of this might have been late one Saturday night when I swung by one of the floor lounges in my dorm and stopped in to see what the guys were watching. They were just starting to watch Batman and Robin, and since I had never seen a Batman movie, I sat down to join them. Before too very long into the film, everyone else in the room had wandered off to bed or bottle, and I was left alone with what even I could see was not a very good movie. But I watched it — alone — to the bitter end. True story.

And the same with music. I may not rock out to every song that comes down the pipe, but I roll with a lot of different stuff. But then Hinder's "Lips Of An Angel" comes on the radio, and a part of me that I am not really familiar with switches on: the part of me that produces strong feelings. I hate this song, not dislike, hate. And it is a hate that has long since crossed into the realm of the irrational, which makes it not one jot less intense.

I can't quite put my finger on why I feel so strongly about this particular song. It is not a bad song in the strictest sense of the word. It is insipid and palpably commercial, but so are a hell of a lot of other songs that still bring at least moderate enjoyment to this listener. It is not the band itself: the band is respectable and not ridiculously-heavy, the vocals are decently-executed, and I very much like their previous single, "Get Stoned", which I am listening to right now in an as-yet fruitless attempt to banish the song in question from my intolerant mind.

I am tempted to think that it is the content of the lyrics that I react so adversely to. I am for some reason very uncomfortable with the story. It seems silly for a devotee of Marilyn Manson such as myself to raise a moral objection to the lyrics of a song, but nevertheless. Manson's lyrics are over the top and densely-layered masterpieces of shock, schlock and scathing social commentary; Hinder's song is an utterly straightforward expression of very pedestrian emotions of longing for a previous sexual partner, even (or especially) in the proximity of one's current main squeeze. Maybe I am getting old and stodgy, but I just don't rock that way.

I just wish this song would leave me alone.

She married him

Huh.

Every so often (at ever lengthening intervals, I am glad to report) I get the inclination to Google the name of my first girlfriend. This morning was one of those occasions, and I had the bright idea to try her first name in combination with the last name of the guy she dumped me for. And there they were: Mr and Mrs, him and her, on a list of donors to the Catholic high school from which he graduated. At last, an answer to that little question.

Well, that's nice. Just as I am glad to continue to believe that my major life choices have been for the best, that I am indeed following the path that I am truly called to tread, so, too, I take real and sincere comfort in the knowledge — reliable or not — that once-beloved others are making the right decisions in their lives. She thought that they — she and he — were far more compatible than we — she and I — could ever be. I believe she was right.

Of course I certainly didn't agree with her at the time. But after long, anguished months filled with pathetic attempts to "win her back" I came to grudgingly respect her decision and out of necessity tried to move on with my own life, a life without her.

So I've got Jude in my head today. I remember that back in that dismal Spring of 2000 there would be days where I would set the cd player to "Repeat" and listen to "I Do" over and over and over and over, for hours at a stretch, struggling to internalise the emotional state that the persona of the song has achieved:

But there's just one more dream
that I have left for you
I hope you're smiling when
he turns around and says "I do"
I do

"Gone To The Movies"

The final track on Semisonic's 1998 release Feeling Strangely Fine is a superb conclusion to a superb album. And especially appropriate for a snowy day like today.

It makes me want very badly to learn to play it on the guitar, and to start playing guitar again, period. I wonder if anything will come of that.

"Oh Lord It's Hard To Be Humble"

A post by Blogagaard had me savouring the tune to "King Of The Road" for much of yesterday, even though I couldn't recall many of the lyrics. Somehow by evening this had led my mind to the classic Mac Davis hit "Oh Lord It's Hard To Be Humble," which I have not thought of in quite some time, either. It has long been a sort of ancestral theme song in the McCutcheon clan; my father and my father's father before him were wont to bellow this out while cleaning the barn or shovelling snow, and I frequently contributed my rendition to the college dorm shower experience back in the day. It has been a long time since then, so I dusted it off on our snowy walk last night, causing Mrs. Mac to laugh uproariously and (shockingly) to say she had never heard it before.

For her benefit and that of others who may be rusty, here are the powerful and moving lyrics:

Oh, Lord it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way
I can’t wait to look in the mirror, ‘cause I get better lookin’ each day
To know me is to love me, I must be a hell of a man
Oh, Lord it’s hard to be humble, but I’m doing the best that I can

I used to have a girlfriend, but I guess she just couldn’t compete
with all of these love-starved women who keep clamoring at my feet.
Well, I probably could find me another, but I guess they’re all in awe of me
Who cares? I never get lonesome, ‘cause I treasure my own company.

I guess you could say I’m a loner, a cowboy outlaw, tough and proud
Oh, I could have lots of friends if I wanna, but then I wouldn’t stand out from the crowd
Some folks say that I’m egotistical, hell, I don’t even know what that means
I guess it has something to do with the way that I fill out these skin-tight blue jeans

Truer words have seldom been spoke or sung.

Main Theme from Wallace and Gromit

The prim yet manic meliorism of this most-British theme, the carvivalesque madcappery of it all, make this the perfect counterpoint to my workday, which contains none of the aforementioned qualities. I have been humming Julian Nott's music for three solid days now.

emocore

Awoke in the wee hours with this floating in neon letters through my foremind. I don't even know what it means. It is a music subgenre of some sort, that much is clear, but I would be helpless if pressed to give even one example thereof.

"How Do I Live Without You?"

The most irritating thing about having this song stuck in my head is not that I then end up with the general experience of watching the film Con-Air, which would be trying enough. It is that I cannot escape the knowledge that there were two recordings in popular circulation at the time — performed by Trisha Yearwood and LeAnn Rimes — and I have no idea which is which. I could never keep them straight at the time, and I certainly cannot do so after the lapse of years. I know I shouldn't care, but I am me; I can't help caring.

And I am becoming a hummer, which makes these little episodes more troubling than when it was merely a silent affliction of my mind.

post-prandial

While washing dishes after supper tonight I was trying to think of a high-falutin' word that means 'after supper'. The best my schoolboy Latin could do was the rather plodding post cenam. Then the above word popped into my head. I could not for the life of me come up with the slightest idea what it meant. I told my wife this, and she said (unaware of the train of thought that had preceded this word's unbidden advent) "I think it means after a meal."

I really scare myself sometimes. (Other times I'm sleeping.)

Consider Yourself Fairly Warned

This is going to be crazy talk. All crazy talk.

Don't say we didn't warn you.